November 7, 2016

Remember: The hard part was the primaries

The historical models of Norpoth and Lichtman suggest that this year the incumbent party would lose control of the White House, meaning the true battle was actually the Republican primaries.

That's not all there is to winning the White House, though, as both models penalize a candidate who came out of an evenly contested primary and therefore has a shaky hold on their own party's members.

If Trump had not been in the GOP race, Jeb would have been neck and neck with at least Cruz and probably also Rubio. Given the fracturing of the Republican party since the Bush vs. Buchanan primary of 1992, there's no reason to think that 2016 would have produced a more cohesive coalition than 2012 or 2008. The general election would have been theirs to lose -- and they would have lost it.

Thankfully Trump showed up at the right time, dominated the primaries (20 points above 2nd place), and has united just about all of the Republican coalition, minus a handful of useless neo-cons who might only affect the race in Virginia.

At this point, we have all the red states lined up to vote red again, and enough crossover appeal to win the swing states of Ohio and Florida, and blue states like Iowa and Michigan.

We have constant rallies, around $100 million to spend, Trump's social media presence of 20 million followers, signs hats and shirts galore, tens of millions of early votes already cast, and tens of millions more ready to vote on Election Day itself. The RNC is nominally, and even somewhat actually supporting him.

Remember how iffy most people thought the primary campaign was?

He spent very little money, operated with a barebones staff, a small hardcore fan base, and no proof that anyone would cast a single vote for him at the polling stations. The RNC was hostile throughout.

There was months and months of speculation about whether anyone would turn out for him, or whether his high poll numbers were just people expressing a preference that they would not act on. After a close 2nd-place finish in Iowa, everyone was gloating about how he was finished. It would not be the first time.

As tiresome as it was to hear Crooked Hillary nag and blather on in three debates, do you remember how insufferable it was to sit through the other candidates at the Republican debates? So many candidates, so many debates... ay ay ay, these people. Trump was so undisciplined, and would never recover from talking about the size of his hands, remember?

Then there was going to be a contested Convention, a delegate revolt, rival candidates bolting the party, etc. That was a big obstacle -- no nomination, no major-party run -- and he does not face a similar threat in the Electoral College if he legitimately wins enough states to get, say, 300 EC votes. There are not going to be dozens of faithless electors.

And Lord knows the media is still biased, but remember back when even Fox News was 24/7 rabid anti-Trump BS?

When you look back at how rigged the system was during the primaries, it's all the more miraculous that we got through it. It'll make the general election look, like, a baby.

That's not to say that the Establishment might not try to steal an election here or there, but it's easier to challenge and defeat that now that Trump is a major-party candidate, rather than one of many lowly candidates for nomination.

The real time to be pulling your hair out was during the primaries -- and we got through that relatively unscathed. The paranoids said the Establishment, with trillions of dollars at stake, would never allow Trump to rise in the polls (they would be cooked), never give Trump a win in any state (they'd heist it), never allow the Convention to proceed smoothly and fairly, and certainly never allow Trump to actually receive the nomination.

But the Establishment did ultimately relent on all of those nevers, and here we are, poised to defeat another series of nevers -- never allowed to lead any national poll, never allowed to win a swing or blue state, never be declared the winner, never be chosen by the Electoral College, and never be inaugurated.

A political climate that allows Trump to receive the nomination is not hell-bent on nipping the populist problem in the bud. They've let it go this far because they know we'll burn down the whole system if they try to steal our election in broad daylight.

The ideologues may want to crush us at any costs, but those with actual wealth and power do not want to go extinct overnight. They'd rather concede something, even a big something, if it means they continue to profit and control things, just at a lower (perhaps much lower) level than before.

Make some profit and stay alive, or double-down on upward wealth transfer and provoke the mob into burning it all down? So far, signs point to basic sanity and self-preservation among those with true wealth and power.

The ideologues who yammer impotently about immediately impeaching President Trump, and the like, will get their plug pulled by their paymasters for injecting all that volatility back into the system, when they prefer things to operate more smoothly.

Knock on wood for a relatively peaceful transition of power to the populist-nationalist movement.

13 comments:

I'm 99.9% certain of a Trump victory. Democrats are talking up the "Latino surge" in places like Nevada but are ignoring the even larger White surge going on. They forget that a big Latino surge is still small and a small White surge is still big. There are over four times as many Whites as there are Hispanics. Any people concerned about voter fraud should realize that real genuine voter interest outweighs taking a charter bus, loading 50 people onto it, and going to vote at a few locations. 500 illicit votes pales in comparison to a 140 million voter turnout. We should still be vigilant of course.

Yesterday was a surreal day in terms of the Trump campaign: made a campaign stop in Minneapolis and then his next stop in Michigan featured The Nuge talking about the "real Michigan" which I'm sure triggered liberals who instead want a "new Michigan" composed of immigrants from the Middle East. The energy at both rallies are impressive. Everyone thinks Minnesota is a stretch but at this point, nothing surprises me anymore. I will take a thin margin of defeat there, if only to rattle the refugee importers and SWPLs from Hennepin County who thought they were a deep blue state.

I voted Sat. afternoon. More women than men were voting. Saw 3 middle aged black guys, all wearing slacks, one of whom was very Somali looking. Another was more West African looking, while the 3rd was inconclusive. These men didn't have the slouching cocky demeanor that you see with American blacks. 1 Trad. black women (you can tell by their sullen faces and body language). I'll say it again: American blacks born since 1965 have got to be the most entitled thing to ever exist. My dad whose had lots of jobs involving driving (taking him to places that he otherwise would avoid) says that younger blacks purposely jay walk slowly in front of white motorists to taunt them. Really, it's miraculous that more white people don't just snap after dealing with sour blacks.

Here in MN, the Middle Eastern and African "refugees" (who generally seem to be of high(er) caliber breeding than trad. American blacks) tend to dress quite well. All of the white people voting were dressed in shorts,(it was an insane 70 degrees Saturday), yoga pants, jeans, T-shirts/thermal shirts/Flannels, etc.

I don't doubt these New Americans and blacks voted Hillary. But ultimately it's up to the Nice White people of the Upper Midwest to decide who wins since there's just not that many non-whites here.

No mestizos or Asians that I could see, and trust me there's definitely some who live in the area.

I really don't know how MN or WI will turn out. It'll be close. There's a lot strivers, Nordic doofuses, and trashy blacks. Plus both states were statehooded after 1830; not good as these states tend to have a much weaker sense of founding stock traditions and history.

One of my co-workers, an early 20s Hispanic female, was going on and on about how Trump would cause another Great Depression. It was all based on emotion and she couldn't carry a logical conversation about economics. Anyway I asked her if she's registered to vote and she said No. I was slightly surprised considering how anti-Trump she is but it just goes to show Hispanics are such non-voters.

Another Hispanic woman, in her late 20s, overheard the conversation and told me she is registered to vote and already voted. I asked for who expecting her to say Hillary. Nope, she voted for Trump! That made my day and gave me a boost of optimism.

Voter fraud isn't the main threat, it's election theft -- rigging the machines, writing software that shaves off points from Trump, altering the electronic data in between the machine to the central server, etc.

Roger Stone and the Stop the Steal group are conducting exit polls to see if the official outcomes deviate by more than 2 points from their exit polls. If so, it violates the US DoS' own standard for fair elections abroad, and will be challenged with litigation.

Excellent capstone post to all your consistently funny and sharp election coverage. Thanks for all the effort you've made on behalf of the God Emperor, and may Trump's America be as gloriously upbeat, outgoing, and implicitly white as the 1980's.

Ignore early voting -- unless most people have already voted early, and they're so lopsidedly for one candidate, it means nothing. No different than analyzing the results based on when they cast their ballot on Election Day itself.

According to Alex Jones, several sources including Roger Stone are saying that momentum is shifting by the hour towards Trump pretty much everywhere. We'll wait and see if it's just gamesmanship to encourage more fence-sitters and sad-sacks to get off their duff and vote Trump.

Some points:

- The Hispanics hate Trump meme is getting pounded hard. No discussion of polling data that shows Trump doing as well as a generic GOP candidate or geographical/ethnic differences (the blackest and most pro-Dem ones are Puerto Ricans who are almost non-existent outside of the Northeast and Florida). No discussion of surveys showing that many Hispanics do not want endless waves of third world immigration. Perhaps the media and the Dems (but I repeat myself) is trying to troll more Hispanics into showing up. Which is kinda naïve given that Hispanics don't vote like blacks do anyway.

- Nate Silver is actually being cautious. He's giving Trump a better chance than some other outlets.

- MN has record early voter turnout. Perhaps a lot of dudes put down their lunch pail and got to the polls this time 'round. It ain't because of Millennials (kids don't vote) mestizos, Asians, Somalis, Af.-Americans (stagnant or reduced turnout for all of the above compared to Obama's elections) , or yuppie enthusiasm (they vote reliably no matter what). Also, virtually no Hillary voter is voting for Hillary; more that they're voting against Trump. The lack of enthusiasm for Hillary would suggest to me that the record turnout can be put down to once-alienated and seldom polled working stiffs voting Trump in defiance of what the genteel set wants.

I have friends and family in Minnesota. They are voting for Trump but they're all certain that he has no shot. Typical cuck belt defeatism. The only thing that may benefit Trump in the end is that Hillary ran an anti-working class campaign. She made little or no attempts at trying to include the working class into her campaign and if they were discussed, they were derided or called deplorable.

If Minnesota has a shot for turning Republican, it's that working class Democrats and Independents got turned off to her dismissal of them and decided to pull the lever for Trump. That is so un-Minnesota from my experience; it would almost seem more likely for them to vote Hillary to prove to the world that not all working class white guys are Trump supporters. I hope to be pleasantly surprised tomorrow.